DRC: UN arms embargo violated, says HRW

Democratic Republic of Congo: End Arms Flows as Ethnic Tensions Rise

(Brussels, November 19, 2004) As rising ethnic tensions fuel the risk of
renewed war in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, local
government officials have reportedly delivered guns to civilians despite a
United Nations embargo, Human Rights Watch said today. U.N. Security
Council members arriving in the region on Saturday must speed the
deployment of additional U.N. peacekeepers and ensure that they interrupt
new flows of firearms.

This week Human Rights Watch received reports that the U.N. embargo
on firearms to eastern D.R.C is being violated. According to local sources,
local government officials have delivered firearms to civilians in Masisi,
North Kivu, long the site of conflict between different political and
military groups. Other shipments have been delivered to Ituri, another
persistently troubled area in northeastern Congo. U.N. sources reported
that some 300 Congolese high school students, refugees in neighboring
Rwanda, abruptly left their schools and are said to be undergoing military
training.

"Guns and ethnic hatred make for a catastrophic mix," said Alison Des
Forges, senior advisor to Human Rights Watch's Africa Division. "U.N.
peacekeepers need to interrupt the arms flows, and Security Council
members must pressure local leaders to stop fueling ethnic hostilities."

Tensions have risen sharply between Banyamulenge-a Congolese people
related to the Tutsi of Rwanda and Burundi-and Congolese of other
ethnic groups. Tensions spiked after the massacre of more than 150
Congolese refugees, most of them Banyamulenge, in Burundi in mid-
August. Two months earlier, Congolese troops led by Banyamulenge and
Tutsi officers seized the Congolese town of Bukavu from Congolese
government forces led by officers of other ethnic groups. Soldiers from
both sides killed and raped civilians, leaving some 50 civilians dead, a
score of them Banyamulenge.

Tutsi authorities in neighboring Rwanda and Burundi blamed Congolese
officials for the killings of Banyamulenge. They called the killings
genocide and in August threatened to invade the DRC.

"Firm diplomatic intervention by South Africa and Britain cooled the
situation last time, but now everyone is just waiting for the next crisis,"
said Des Forges. "Local political leaders are making threats and spreading
rumors, ensuring that hostility stays high between the Banyamulenge and
other groups."

When Banyamulenge refugees tried to return home from Burundi in early
October, they were stoned by other Congolese who accused them of
preparing the way for military attack by Rwanda. Rumors last week about
the return of another group of Banyamulenge refugees aroused new anger
among other Congolese in Bukavu.

In the last 10 years, an estimated three million civilians died in wars in the
DRC, and at least half a million Rwandan Tutsi were slaughtered in the
1994 genocide.

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